Desolation: Anamnesis – The Lab I

I remember. I can remember it all. Fragments. Nothing concrete. The training, the espionage. Is it my imagination, or was it my life? I can see it all in my mind’s eye. Any event I can think of, remember, it’s my life, but not the one I’m living. This is one of my memories, one of my long lost missions.

It was Germany… or Russia … Siberia? It was winter.

Hard snow covered the ground and the cold was biting. Intel was that C.H.A.O.S. was planning something big at this newly discovered secret facility. I’d been staking the place out in a nano-tech stealth suit for a few hours after an air-drop to the roof. Thermal goggles told me the patterns of the guards on the inside and outside, but whatever was actually going on in there was going on deep underground.

I scaled down the building via zipline, and took out one of the guards in one shot. I took his access cards and equipment, and used the side entrance, dragging him inside. There was an elevator there to the lower levels, I got in. Typical: muzak was playing; of Journey, no less. It was then that I realized that these people are sick, sicker than I thought.

Two buttons; one for this floor, one for the sub-basement. I hacked into the broken fingerprint scanner, double-rebacked the registry, fed in the code to mask the phoney parameters, and continued my descent. The lights flickered as it started up to head down.

The doors slid open. Something killed the lights as I heard some sort of hissing down the long, blank hallway. I took out my pocket light, and held it up, illuminating only small portions at a time. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. It was then that I realized the heat down there. Beads of sweat were already dripping down my face. I brushed my long, flowing hair out of my face, and jogged down the hall against the wall.

Footsteps rushed around in the blackness. I focused, honed in on my skills and training. I thought that whatever these things were down here, they were either never human, or have been warped and twisted beyond all humanity.

I arrived at the door at the end of the hall. My foot slipped ever so slightly. Looking down, I saw a pool of liquid. It glowed for a few seconds after I took my light off of it. There were dents coming from the other side of the door. The entire operation reeked of C.H.A.O.S.

I got the feeling that the guards outside were not meant to keep anyone out.

I opened the door, gun drawn. I was attacked, blindsided from the right, my light was smashed.

Two bullets.

A third.

A fourth.

A pause.

A fifth.

A sixth.

No light.

A seventh.

Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

Echoes. Silence. Plenty of ammo left.

I moved on into the next room. I cannot describe the smells, though I can remember them vividly. It was like almost nothing I’ve ever smelled before, some sort of artificial chemical/biological hybrid smell. I recalled the blueprints perfectly. The atrium. I stood over it, looking over the railing. All I heard was meandering, sloshing. Even in C.H.A.O.S. I could find a point, some reason, and some purpose besides death.